Jesus: crucified, dead and buried

New Guest: Like this one, most posts are devotional; those related to CAR BIZ can be found by searching the blog archives for that title. You might start with 'Welcome,' the first post, dated November 12, 2008, where I introduce myself and the blog. As you read, I encourage you to record any reflections or comments you may have. The entries here serve best as the first remarks in a conversation.

Easter blessings,
Dr. Will

Friday and Saturday, April 2 and 3, 2010

Devotions: Ps 22, 27, 40, 88, 95; Lam 2:19-3:9; 3:19-33; Rom 8:1-11 1 Pet 1:10-20; Heb 4:1-16; Jn 13:36-38; 19:38-42

My God, why have You forsaken me? I am in profound peril, and You are enthroned on high. I am despised and attacked, surrounded by hostility, crucified: my bones are all out of joint, my heart melts like wax, my strength is gone and my tongue sticks to my jaws. I am dying, surrounded by ravening dogs. God, deliver me! Let me tell of Your name; may the afflicted benefit from my testimony! May all creation bow and serve our God. YHWH is my Light and my Salvation; I fear no evil. He will raise me up above my enemies, and I will offer shouts of exultation and praise to my God. Cast me not away, O Lord; take me up! I believe I will see God’s goodness, so I will trust and wait upon my God. Yes, I waited, and God came through. He put a new song in my mouth, and He has raised me from death to eternal life. May all who seek You rejoice and be glad, when they see how You have blessed me. Though I had descended to the Pit, God has lifted me to new life; I bore the wrath of God at the sins of humankind, but God has responded and brought me up from darkness to His light. So let us sing to the Lord, a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come to Him with thanksgiving and praise Him with great praise. For YHWH is a great God, a great high King above all gods. All creation is His by right of creation, and living beings are under His authority and reign. Let us enter God’s rest and praise Him.

Pour out your hearts to God all night long; let God meet with the afflicted. Let Him have mercy on those He has broken because of human sin. I have borne the explosive power of His wrath—yet God’s steadfast love sustains me and His mercies never end; they are new every morning: great is Your faithfulness! YHWH is my Portion, and I await His coming with peace in my heart. YHWH will not cast me off forever, and I will accept His chastening and also receive His mercy.

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus the Messiah. The Spirit’s law has set me free from the law of sin and death—I am alive in Jesus the Messiah. God has done what the law could not: He sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, God condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk according to the Spirit, not the flesh, and who set our minds not on things of flesh but on the things of the Spirit. The be flesh-minded is death; to be Spirit-minded is life and peace! Flesh-set minds are hostile to God—they will not and cannot submit to God, and they cannot please God. But we Christians are in the Spirit, since God the Spirit lives in us. Anyone who lacks Christ’s Spirit cannot belong to Him; but Christ is in us, though our bodies are dead because of sin, our spirits live because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from death lives in us, He Who raised the Messiah Jesus from death will also give life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit, Who dwells in us.

Peter had promised never to leave or forsake Jesus; Jesus had told Peter that Peter would betray Him three times before the next cockcrow. Jesus’ prediction came true.

When Jesus had died on the cross, Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus, asked Pilate for Jesus’ body. With Nicodemus, Joseph took the body, along with one hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes; they bound the spices around Jesus’ body with linen cloths, and laid the body in an unused garden tomb just before the Day of Preparation, the Sabbath, fell and sundown on Friday.